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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
COUNSELLING SKILLS
The Counselling Interview

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
In its loosest sense, a counselling session is any regular face-
to-face communication between a manager and an
employee, in which the techniques of the counselling
approach are used. These can include career counselling,
performance appraisal and disciplinary interviews. In its
tighter sense, a counselling session is one in which an
employee and his or her manager sit down to resolve any
identified block to the employee's progress, whether that
block originates at work or outside work or is raised by the
employee first or manager first.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE AIMS OF COUNSELLING
The aims of a counselling session can be on three different
levels.
Level 1: to comply with the organisation's stated counselling
procedures, for example carrying out counselling as the first
stage of discipline.
Level 2: to provide the forum for the employee to discuss a
problem, as in a career counselling session or a redundancy
session.
Level 3: to enhance the manager-employee relationship for
mutual advantage, allowing the manager an opportunity to
develop the employee and the employee the means to find
ways to overcome blocks to progress.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
PREPARING FOR COUNSELLING
John makes preparations for his counselling session with
Angela. He...
1. makes out a checklist of what he needs to do
2. fixes a time, date and location where they won't be
disturbed
3. clears the interview with her immediate supervisor
4. notifies Angela in good time
5. finds out as much as he can about the problem
6. reads through Angela's records
7. thinks through his own feelings and thoughts
8. checks to see if there's an organisational angle such as a
policy or constraint
9. gets a view from HR
10. arranges the room, furniture and coffee
11. ensures there will be no, absolutely no, interruptions
12. gets himself into the right frame of mind.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
ME OR SOMEONE ELSE?
There are certain reasons why, even though you are the
employee's manager, a counselling session conducted by
you might be inappropriate. These might be because of:
1. Gender Problems, where the person feels more
comfortable with someone of their own sex or, more
rarely, someone of the opposite sex
2. Relationship Problems, where you might be part of the
problem and so unable to take an objective position
3. Issues Of Principle, where the subject might be one
about which you find it hard not to get emotional, for
example, abortion. In such cases, it is wiser to refer the
person on.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE ENVIRONMENT
The best environment for a counselling session is one in
which the individual feels able to relax and discuss their
issues freely. This means providing time and space and
eliminating interruptions and distractions.
Some thought may need to be given to how and where you
sit in a counselling session.
1. make sure you can clearly see each other
2. avoid anything that comes between you
3. sit at equal heights
4. respect each other's personal space. Don't come closer
than the personal distance zones of three or four feet
5. avoid initially sitting adjacent to a member of the
opposite sex or opposite a member of the same sex as
these can be construed as threatening
6. a happy compromise is to sit at a 90 degree angle to
each other.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
MAKING IT SAFE
Human beings need both risk and a safety net to grow and
change. We need risk to explore new possibilities and a
safety net in case we fall. Counselling is often about helping
people have the courage to leave the comfort of safety
zones and face the risks of change.
Total risk is unacceptable to most people. We fear what
could happen if things don't work out and this fear sends us
back into the self-protective zone.
Counsellors need to recognize the fears which people have.
They may be very real and immediate fears such as the
possible loss of a job, income or the fear of embarrassing
oneself, and the fear of facing things otherwise hidden.
There may also be deep-seated fears from the distant past.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
FREE FROM THREATS
To create a climate of safety in a counselling session...
1. don't force people to undergo counselling under threat
2. bring people into the process from the very start. Let
them have a say in the agenda and order of discussion. Plan
to increase their level of ownership. The counsellor's power
increases the more power he or she gives away.
3. check back frequently to see how the client feels
4. make the process familiar: talk their language, using their
experiences, at their pace
5. push back the comfort zone slowly
6. do everything you can to raise people's self-esteem. This
enables them to have their own inner resources to handle
threats.
7. remember that psychological risks such as the fear of
showing a side that they don't usually show may hold
greater fears for some people than physical risk.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE COUNSELLING ROLE
The counsellor's role in workplace counselling is first and
foremost a helping one. It is an attempt to establish
purposeful communication with others: to give them the
freedom to speak about issues that are important to them
and to be listened to; to put their side of things; to help
them clarify and find satisfactory ways to move forward.
The counsellor is not immune to the feelings which an
exchange may call forth, such as anger and helplessness, but
he or she does not show them.
The role a manager plays when counselling an employee has
overlaps with the role of facilitator, group worker,
empowering team player and people-centred leader.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
HELPER AND FACILITATOR
The manager who takes the role of counsellor needs to use
the modern management skills of helper and facilitator, not
those of director and instructor. His or her role is to stand
back, not intervene; to guide, not push; to suggest, not tell.
Problems are solved when we let other people work things
out for themselves.
The counsellor...
1. is neither critical nor insulting
2. doesn't insist on helping when it is not needed
3. doesn't sympathize or wallow in self-pity
4. doesn't indulge in theories
5. doesn't put people down
6. doesn't make light of other people's problems, talk too
soon, too often or too long
7. doesn't fight their battles for them
8. doesn't ignore what matters to them.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE THREE C'S
All interviews between manager and staff, whether they are
recruitment interviews for jobs, appraisal interviews for
performance reviews or counselling interviews, share the
same need to juggle three equally-important themes, the
three C's of interviews.
These are:
1. Context, which means having an eye on the
organisation's policy, the circumstances beyond the
interview room and the culture of the organisation
2. Content, which means the items on the agenda, and
3. Contact, which is the nature of the one-to-one
relationship.
The interview works as an interview when all three themes
are aligned: you are meeting within the terms of the
organisation's policy; you have a clear agenda and aims; you
have the skills to establish rapport and build a relationship.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE PROCESS
There are four detectable processes in all successful
counselling interviews.
These are:
1. the move from general to personal territory
2. the move from manager control to employee control
3. the move from exploration of the terrain to isolation of
the issues
4. the move through the classic structural stages of a
counselling session.
Being aware of these patterns means that at any time
during the interview you can take your bearings on where
you are and how much further you still have to go. It also
means you can pace yourself knowing how much you still
have to achieve.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
TOWARDS THE PERSONAL
The move from general to personal territory in a counselling
interview can be detected in the progress through four main
themes.
1. At the beginning of the interview there is a predominance
of clichés. "How are things?" ; "On the whole..." Clichés
allow people to feel their way in to the interview.
2. The next stage is to discuss facts. This is a move away
from vague generalities to precise reporting.
3. Facts give way to opinions when people comment
personally on the facts. "What do you think about that?"
4. The last stage of this progression is to bring in people's
feelings - "How do you feel about that?" - which completes
the move to highly personalised territory.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
LETTING GO
A counselling interview often starts with the manager
centre-stage and doing most of the decision-taking.
From then on, there should be a gradual shift towards the
employee becoming centre-stage and doing most of the
decision-taking.
The progression is from "I" (the manager) through "We"
(both of us) to "You" (the employee).
1. I: I've noticed that...; I'd like to ask...
2. We: We have to face facts...; We need to work this out...
3. You: What do you suggest?; What help do you need
from me?
The process is one in which the manager lets go of control in
favour of the employee.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
ISOLATING THE ISSUES
The move in a counselling interview from a wide-ranging
exploration of the terrain to the isolation of the main issues
is like a filtering funnel with layers of sieves:
1. In the Exploration Stage, there is an opening up of the
issues, signalled by phrases such as: "Tell me what
happened"; "Where would you like to start?".
2. In the Challenging Stage, there is a period of testing and
probing. "How does this make you feel?"; "So neither of
you can get on?"
3. In the Solution Stage, there is a closing down of the
ways forward. "What can you do now?"; "What route
would you like to take?“
Facts are sieved to determine the relevant ones. Issues are
sieved to find the important ones. Options are sieved to find
the best one.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
STAGES
There are five stages in a classic counselling session.
They are:
Stage 1: Contracting: agreeing the aims, structure and
conditions of the session.
Stage 2: Exploration: looking at what happened; how
people feel; what they did
Stage 3: Challenging: confronting problems; facing up to
what isn't working
Stage 4: Solution: agreeing how to resolve problems; how
to move things on
Stage 5: Ending: leaving the session; looking forward.
It is very important not to move from one stage to the next
until both people in the counselling have summarised the
present session and reached agreement on it.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
CONTRACTING
Contracting is an important first step in any contact between
a manager and employee undertaking counselling. It does a
number of necessary things:
1. It indicates that the process is an equal one with both
sides having an input about how the session should be run.
2. It spells out the purpose and outcomes of the session.
3. It sets a business tone.
4. It starts on a reasoned basis, not an emotional one.
5. It sets realistic expectations.
6. It sorts out practical issues such as venues and times.
7. It does not leave either side guessing about what's going
on.
8. It provides the basis for re-negotiation if anything
unexpected arises.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
EARLY EXPLORING
The early stages of exploration in counselling is an opening-
up phase in which the counsellor invites the client to lead.
The counsellor follows by...
1. giving people space and time by not rushing them
2. letting them finish their sentences
3. being deliberately vague so that the client can come to
terms with his or her own meaning
4. using open body language eg open arms, open palms,
uncrossed legs
5. keeping their opinions to themselves
6. avoiding any talk of excuses, blame or talking about
others
7. using the trailing-off comment which invites the other
person to jump in
8. keeping questions simple.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
LATER EXPLORING
The later stages of exploration aim to close the client down
so that the discussion concentrates on the key issues and
problems. The counsellor does this by:
1. gentle probing
2. seeking the meaning which the client puts on events
3. frequent summaries
4. trailing ideas past the client to test their reaction but
leaving room for the client to tell you if you're wrong
5. seizing on anything the client says that indicates their
ownership of the problem and their willingness to do
something about it
6. thinking out loud about possible ways ahead
7. giving support and permission to ideas the client has.
In this way the counsellor moves out of the exploration
stage itself and into the confronting and solutions stages.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
MIDDLES
No two counselling sessions are ever the same but the
structures are likely to be similar. Structures are the mix of
questions, statements and comments which the counsellor
makes throughout the session.
The following summarises a typical session at work:
Contracting: 90% statements on boundaries; 10%
summarising
Middle stage: 45% open questions, eg "Tell me what
happened"; 5% reminding the client of the boundaries; 15%
summarising statements; 10% hunches, eg "Maybe he feels
threatened"; 10% suggestions, eg "How about speaking to
her?"; 10% reinforcing statements about work, eg "Your
work is good when you're not distracted"; 5% supportive
comments, eg "You can do it, I know you can".
Endings: 90% statements about plans; 10% summarising.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
CHALLENGING
One of the key skills that distinguishes the counselling
approach from other kinds of people helping is the
willingness of the counsellor to challenge their clients to
face up to the issues that are blocking them.
In the counselling interview, this naturally happens if the
interview moves beyond the exploration stage when
obstacles have been brought out into the open. It's at this
point that the counsellor says, "OK, this is the situation.
What are you going to do about it?“
If, during the exploration stage, the client has been able to
openly accept the difficulties and their own responsibility,
challenging will be a relatively short phase before you can
then explore solutions. However, if the client still has
problems facing up to their situation, then challenging will
be hard, and may even prove an insurmountable block.

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
SOLUTIONS
The purpose of counselling can be seen as an attempt to
move a person from the three states of Ignorance, Blockage,
and Inaction to the states of Awareness, Acceptance, and
Change.
The first two stages of a counselling session hold the mirror
of self-awareness up to the person. The stage of challenging
brings people to face up to their situation and accept their
"response responsibility". This leaves just one more step: a
solution that leads to action.
Ideally, this stage happens as a natural step in the
counselling interview process, but sometimes people
hesitate or re-think. They may need more support; they may
need more options; they may need more time. In which
case, offering advice or referring people on may be
intermittent solutions. Ultimately, a solution only succeeds
when it meets the needs of you as manager, the individual,
and the organisation.

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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The Counselling Interview
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn